SM Stirling

by Shadowspawn 01 - A Taint in the Blood (v5)

  is going to have an initiation ceremony soon?” Like that,

  Ellen thought. The simple physical well-being of hard exercise and a hot shower faded. Then it

  isn’t normal, like that. “Yeah,” a honey-blond teenager named Sherry added. She was the coed’s younger sister and about sixteen, very pretty in a wholesome way, but the type a student from India she’d known at NYU had said was called a tung admi

  where he came from, a tight lady. In American terms she had no more than ten years before a lifetime battle with the waistline started. Sherry went on with a note of complaint: “Like, I’m months

  overdue, we’ve taken all the classes and practiced and watched the videos and everything. I want my pendant before we take the SATs!” Like that. It’s the normal adolescent lust to grow up, I can remember that pretty vividly, but . . . The freckle-faced youngster looked at Monica. “I . . . ah, Ms. Darton, is getting bitten as cool as some people say? A really big rush?” “Not the first time, dear,” Monica said, to her visible disappointment. “I told

  you, Sherry,” the college girl said. “But you’d rather listen to junior year geeks who don’t

  know what they’re talking about.” Sherry looked mutinous, and Monica went on gently: “It doesn’t hurt, only a little sting, but you’re just . . . very calm, the first few feedings. After that, yes, it starts to feel extremely nice, but that’ll only happen if you become a lucy, and that’s not likely.” Calm, as in, you can’t move while you watch them drink your blood,

  Ellen thought. Of course, before the feeding you feel

  scared, or in the case of my first time

  agonizing pain and bewilderment and terror and then afterwards you feel horrified. Or maybe not, if you grew up with the idea. “What’s involved in this initiation?” she asked aloud. “I’ve only been here a couple of months, and I’m a lucy and a new one at that, so . . .” The college girl answered: “Oh, there’s this ceremony, with your family and friends. Everyone sort of dresses up—” “Black robes with hoods,” her mother said. “That’s traditional. It’s held up at the casa grande

  . There’s a big room just for initiations. Like a chapel. In a way.” “—and there’s chanting and kneeling and stuff like that, and you pledge yourself to the Brézés and the Shadowspawn.” “Our blood and souls are thine, thou who will live and rule when we are long dust,

  ” her mother said in a reminiscent tone, obviously quoting from memory. “Take, drink. With our blood and lives and bodies we worship thee.” “Then the candidate goes up—” “Naked!

  ” the younger girl said breathlessly, her eyes glittering. “—well, yeah,” her older sister said, with affected worldliness. “You wear this white robe, and then you stand up and let it slip off and go up in front of everyone. Which is so

  totally hideous

  if you’re overweight and you’ve got a big wobbly butt or something like poor Madison did on my night. I thought she was going to die

  of embarrassment right there, or cry, or hurl. Or if you’re a guy and little

  like Bob Tyler. So watch out, Sherry.” “I am not

  fat! I’ve got a twenty-five waist!” Sherry said hotly. “Didn’t say you were. But think about that next time you see a milk shake. At least you can do

  something about it, which is more than poor Bob could.” Turning back to Ellen: “And you lie on this stone altar thing—it’s got padding—and you put your arms around the Doña

  while she bites your neck and feeds on you while everyone watches. She’s naked too, and God, what a body

  . Like Monica said, Sherry, it just makes you feel . . . calm. Not much blood, a sip from each, and then you get your pendant and a black

  robe and everyone gives you a hug and a kiss on both cheeks and you sing.” Her mother crooned a verse: “Spawn of Shadows Rule our nighted hearts—” The elder daughter nodded. “Then there’s a big party. It’s a bit like a sorority or fraternity pledge.” Sorority Sisters from . . .

  Heeeellll,

  Ellen thought, keeping an interested smile on her face. Oh, Christ! “Or like a first communion, in other places,” someone else said helpfully. “Or a bar mitzvah.” An older woman tinkled the ice in her drink; she was a well-preserved sixty-something, neat in her tennis whites and billed cap, with blue-white hair and a fresh pink face and eyes like an ancient snake. “Tame, tame, tame. Now, in my

  day, when Don Jules and Doña Julianne were heads of the family here, if you were pretty you were likely to get deflowered

  as well as bled, right there on the altar in front of everyone. Don Jules had my brother, Henry, on our initiation night, and then me right after. My

  mother fainted dead away watching. But Mother wasn’t born here, of course.” “Oh, wow!

  ” Sherry said, her face wavering between fascination and dread. “That would be so totally extreme

  .” “Yes,” the older woman said softly, swirling her drink again and looking into the distance. Then, in a normal tone: “That

  changed my perspective on things, let me tell you. Of course, most girls were virgins at sixteen, in my day. Are you, Sherry?” The girl’s mother glowered at her as Sherry blushed crimson. Monica put in: “Doña Adrienne doesn’t do that very often. Though,” she added thoughtfully, “her parents are

  visiting, so maybe they’ll give you an initiation to remember, Sherry.” “Well, I’m off,” Ellen said brightly, looking at her watch. “Would you like to catch a movie later?” Monica said. “I’m taking Josh and Sophie to the new Disney, the Snow White

  remake. We finally

  got 3-D here.” “I’ve, ah, got a heavy date tonight,” Ellen said. “Up at the casa

  . I’m supposed to meet the Doña

  ’s parents, and then, ah, you know. I was hoping I could drop by your place to make sure the dress is exactly right. She said look nice

  .” And she said

  don’t plan on anything energetic tomorrow, too. Which means she’s got something . . . whimsical planned. Oh, Jesus. “Oh, of course,” Monica said. “Have fun on your drive! See you about seven, then.” Everyone else waved or called goodbyes. Ellen went out through the stucco and wrought-iron entrance to the civic center, got into her Volt and let her head drop onto the steering wheel while she struggled to keep her breath even. The knowledge that she couldn’t just wake up and be back in a sane world was a cold, thick lump in her stomach. She craved a cigarette and a couple of stiff vodka-and-orange-juice mixes. I’m craving being bitten, too,

  she thought. It’s been everyone else but me for the last six days and I

  need it. My skin’s itching and I’m starting to resent the others. I

  want it and I’m scared of the other stuff she’s going to do to me and I still want it. “I’ve got to get out

  of this place!” she said to herself, resisting the urge to beat her forehead rhythmically on the padded surface of the wheel. “Got to, got to, got to

  !” The temptation to just point the car in any direction but west and accelerate was overwhelming. She fought it down and began taking deep breaths: in until the chest creaked, hold for the count of three, slowly exhale, repeat. It had seemed silly when she’d first started it after her therapist talked her into yoga classes years ago, but it did

  help. When she was sure her hands wouldn’t shake anymore, she turned the key. The quiet hum of the electric motor sounded as she pulled out into the street; a glance at the gauge showed nine-tenths charge, enough to get all the way to Paso Robles and most of the way back before the gasoline engine kicked in. Warm air poured in as she drove; the outskirts of town passed quickly, with its Rancho Sangre Sagrado elevation 666 pop. 3964

  sign. Then a stretch of countryside mostly in vines and orchards and olive groves with the odd horse-ranch, rising towards hills westward where the grass was turning gold between tongues of forest, more open to the east. And then the outskirts of Paso Robles itself, with a scatter of outlet stores and fast food . . . It looks so
>
  normal I could cry

  , she thought. I even love the sight of some boarded-up stores. She parked in a side street near the town center; she was wearing a pants-and-blouse ensemble with a worked-leather belt and a sun hat, casual-chic. The man at the podium-desk of the Craftsman restaurant greeted her with a smile. “Mr. Ledbetter will be waiting,” she said. Why did I say that? Who is

  Ledbetter? What am I doing here— Adrian rose from the table as she entered the starkly elegant room. For a moment time and memory dropped away; then they came crashing back into her mind, like a surf-wave that crumbles a sand-castle on the beach. Tears started from her eyes, but she blinked them away in her eagerness to see

  . He was smiling at her, but there was something grave in the expression as well. Only a little taller than her, but with a hard, slender masculinity; after not seeing him for three months she was struck again by his presence

  , the way he dominated any room he was in. His face was tanned dark, so that the golden flecks in his eyes stood out more vividly, and there were sun-highlights in his raven hair. He looked more stark than he had in Santa Fe, but with some of the distance gone from his expression, less of the remoteness that had frustrated her. She started towards him and extended her hands; they were trembling slightly. Adrian caught them in his, and kissed each one gently. “Ma belle

  Ellie,” he said softly. “It has been so very long.” They flowed together. Harvey cleared his throat Damn

  , Adrian thought. He broke the kiss, pulling himself away from the touch and taste and the lovely tormenting scent that was like a memory of peach and lilac and apple blossom. “Ellen, my old friend Harvey Ledbetter. Sort of a mentor in my youth, an unofficial elder brother always, brother-in-arms for many years, and my comrade in this business.” Ellen extended a hand. Adrian found himself surprised at how much he wanted these two to like each other. The Texan smiled as he shook, an expression that transformed his homely lined face. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Tarnowski. Glad to see what Adrian thought was worth fighting for. Can’t say as I disagree, offhand.” She laughed. “I won’t say any friend of Adrian’s a friend of mine,” she said. “But any really good

  friend of Adrian who risks his life for Adrian and for me is a friend of mine.” Harvey shrugged. “Adrian and I have saved each other’s butts so often we lost count years ago,” he said. “Harv, could you give us ten minutes?” The older man hesitated, then said: “Sure.” “Do we have time?” Ellen said. They sat, each holding the other’s hands across the table. Hers were warm and slender and strong in his, still with the thumb-callus a tennis player developed on the right hand. “We will make time,” Adrian said decisively. Then: “How much I wish we were just . . . enjoying a dinner together.” “Me too. Oh, yeah

  .” He cleared his throat. “I’m nervous . . . I know this is short notice, Ellie. But we are at war, and that says hurry.

  ” He freed one hand to reach into the pocket of his jacket, and brought out a small velvet case. She looked at him, and he nodded. She took it and snapped it open; within was a plain band of platinum and gold, with a small flawless diamond. His heart tensed with fear as she sat motionless for most of a minute. Then she looked up, with tears jewelling her eyelashes. “Will yes

  do? Even if I can’t keep the ring right now?” He felt his grin grow. “It is an abominable cliché, but you have made me a very happy man.” Harvey arrived back from his walk around the block at the same time as the wine; Roederer Brut L’Ermitage, Tête de Cuvée

  . Not technically champagne—it came from Mendocino—but more than close enough, and good

  champagne at that. The sommelier popped the cork and poured the tall flutes; Ellen extended hers towards him, and he to her. They sipped; tastes like baked apples and buttery crust, apricot and delicate vanilla bean flowed across his tongue with the tickle of the bubbles. Then all three of them clicked their glasses together. “To better luck than I ever had,” Harvey said. “Three divorces,” he added to Ellen. Adrian cocked an eyebrow at him. “Yes, but you were always drunk when you

  proposed, Harv. Marry inebriated, repent at leisure.” “I see you are

  good friends,” she said. “Men don’t insult each other that way unless they are.” Adrian spread his hands. “And now to dinner and business,” he said. “Barbarism, but there you are. I want to proceed to the wedding and the honeymoon as soon as humanly . . . in a way . . . possible.” Ellen’s face went grim. “Me too. Christ, that place . . . it really gets to me. Especially when I can’t remember this.

  ” She frowned. “Though Adrienne says sometimes . . . not that she can tell anything specific . . . but that I don’t seem as crushed

  as I should be.” Harvey sucked air through his teeth, and Adrian nodded. “You don’t consciously remember, but your emotional attitudes

  do. She thinks we have only a base-link, and would be hoping that your torment would slide over to me. We could not keep up this pretense forever.” “Honey,” Ellen said, “I so

  do not want to think of the terms forever

  and Adrienne

  in the same sentence! The more so as it’s literally possible.” Just then the appetizers arrived. “I ordered for you,” Adrian said to them both. “I hope you don’t mind.” “Adrian, you always picked something interesting,” Ellen said. She grinned: “Now I know it’s because you have superhuman

  taste.” He shrugged; you had to be careful about that too, if you could taste things others couldn’t. The waiter set his burden before them; little plates of braised Berkshire pork belly with caramelized apples and celery root, herb-roasted meatballs with buttermilk potato puree and green peppercorns, and crisp calamari . . . “Now, tell us of everything you have observed,” Adrian said, nibbling on one of the meatballs. “Everything

  . However insignificant.” She did; she didn’t have a trained agent’s skills, but she was observant and intelligent, and so new to the world of the ancient conflict that she saw details others might have missed. Adrian felt himself hiss a little when he heard his own mother and father had arrived; his mouth twisted a little at the news of the mysterious baby. “The parents are dead,” he said. “If my mother and father flew in, they would be ravenous for blood when they assumed human form again. Transformation drains the Power. And it is a . . . courtesy to provide a kill for a guest, among Shadowspawn.” “Ew,” Ellen said; she stopped chewing for a moment, then resumed doggedly. “I haven’t met them yet. I’m supposed to go up to the casa grande

  for that tonight.” “Be very careful.” “Hey, I’m careful all the time

  !” Then she stopped and looked at both of them. “You aren’t taking notes?” “That would be bad tradecraft,” Harvey said, popping one of the calamari into his mouth. “Especially for this. You can remember detail if you know how. Mnemonic training’s traditional in the Brotherhood, too.” “What is

  the Brotherhood?” Ellen asked. “You’ve heard of witchfinders?” Harvey said. “Didn’t . . . they sort of torture innocent old women and that sort of thing?” Harvey’s mouth crooked. “Enemy propaganda . . . no, a lot of them really did do that sort of thing

  . But some of them were after the real

  evil magicians.” Adrian nodded. “Like my unesteemed ancestors. The Brézés were leaders of the Order of the Black Dawn for centuries.” Ellen nodded sharply. “That thing everyone in Rancho Sangre wears—” She pulled out her pendant. “That is their symbol. Was theirs, and is now the sigil of the Council of Shadows. The Order were . . . Satanists originally, or for a very long time. Black magicians, loup-garou

  . They could use the Power. A little, weakly—” “About like I can,” Harvey said cheerfully. Adrian nodded. “And as the Order set out to find its counterparts, so the Brotherhood did, until both were worldwide. Unfortunately the Order was much, much stronger by then.” “We don’t have time for general background,” Harvey warned. Adrian dipped his head. “Now, Ellie, here is what I will be doing, as much as you need to know. I will be atte
nding the . . . Prayer for Long Life.

  Invitations were sent widely. One to a recently deceased Shadowspawn.” “Wilbur Peterson.” Harvey took up the tale. He produced a file from the attaché case. “This is a case where written records are necessary.” He slid a photograph across the table. It showed a man in his thirties, dressed in an archaic white-tail jacket and black bow tie, smiling with a cocktail glass in his hand. There was a vague resemblance to Adrian, and the hand on the stem had three fingers of equal length, but his hair was lighter. “He died . . . body-death . . . in 1960,” Harvey said. “By then he’d already sorta retired up to a little country place he had in Sonoma. Got more and more reclusive, then got rid of most of his renfields, then stopped talkin’ to other Shadowspawn except to warn ’em off. ’Bout two months ago, he sat up all night with a case of bubbly, and toasted the sun.” Ellen looked a question at Adrian, and he answered: “Unlike the sign of the cross, silver works, and the aetheric form is just as vulnerable to sunlight as the legends say.” “Tanning lamps?” she said hopefully. “Not powerful enough and they don’t have the full range of particles. Annoying, merely. Direct sunlight for more than a few seconds is always deadly.” “Why did this man . . . this Shadowspawn . . . stay up and die, then? When he could live forever?” Adrian shrugged. “Why do men commit suicide? Probably he had grown tired of his un-life. The weight of grief and loss becomes too much.” “Adrienne said that’s why so many of the really old ones hate

  the modern world and want to destroy it completely,” Ellen said. Adrian smiled grimly. “She is not as different as she thinks, Ellie. She wants to stop it now